Nation States College Football (NSCF) Discussion Thread

[Osarius]

Heads up again guys. OSN's Power Rankings probably won't have explanations again this week -- sorry, didn't have time last week either -- though I'll most likely post them around the same time I decide to RP. I might go back and edit in some stuff for last week and do blurbs for this week's if I have time... but I wouldn't bet on it.

Would usually have done them about now, but unfortunately, World Cup RPing took priority.
Never qualified for one, and there's a reasonable shot this cycle, so... yeah.

The rankings sheet has been updated though, if anybody was curious and hadn't noticed.

[Michael VII]

Mytannion, please hold the cutoff today until I get an RP in! I was about to finish one when my computer randomly shut down, so...I'll just do a quick one and see what happens.

[Mytannion]

Mytannion, please hold the cutoff today until I get an RP in! I was about to finish one when my computer randomly shut down, so...I'll just do a quick one and see what happens.

No problem man. I'll hold it off to the 9PM end of the cut-off range.

[Spitfyred1]

Quick question: Which team is the home team in the results?

[Michael VII]

Quick question: Which team is the home team in the results?

The team that's on the left.

[Osarius]

Quick question: Which team is the home team in the results?

The team that's on the left.

In mine, the home team is on the right, though. I re-format them to conventional American Football results notation.
I think KK's results are home team on the right, as well. I'd have to check the schedule, but I'm sure another conference does it that way too.

Oh, and the standings have been updated


EDIT : Also, while I remember... I've thrown together a test version of the standings sheet which takes strength of schedule into account.
In the sheet, SOS is calculated as ((Team Winning Percentage * 2) + Average Winning Percentage of Opponents) / 3
... mainly because I couldn't figure out a way to calculate Opponents' Opponent's Winning Percentage.

I also changed "Wins" to Winning Percentage (weighted so that home wins are worth less than away wins). At the moment, the sheet will rank on Winning Percentage, and then tie-break on Strength of Schedule... however, I could completely do away with Winning Percentage, because WP is included in the SOS calculation anyway.

I plugged some sample teams and results into the test version, so you guys can take a look and let me know what you think.
There are two tables, too. One with WP, then SOS, then H2H etc ... and another which ranks on SOS first, then H2H etc etc.

The test version can be downloaded from the scorinators link in my sig, or directly here (its only 475 kB). Any and all feedback is welcome, and the sheet is entirely unlocked (except for my currently not-in-use Elo-style ranking system) if you wanted to look at how its all calculated normally or whatever. By all means if you spot a problem in my work, point it out.

I haven't applied it to the main NSCF standings yet, because I wanted to see if the consensus was that it works okay etc etc first. If so, then I'll get to work on upgrading the usual standings sheet to include the new calculations. I'm not sure how it would affect current standings, and it wont be easy to replicate in the two conference test I put together... but I think at the moment, all that would change is Colden would go top ahead of Port Salem... and Utica would overtake OSCU. I'm not sure the OWP would be enough to see an 8-1 team overhaul either of the 9-0 teams. Not yet anyway.

[Mytannion]

Glad we may start implementing strength of schedule Osarius, obviously it is quite tough as we discussed on IRC - but if we can find a way that works (as you seemingly have), it'd be worth having as a part of the rankings.

Also, I think we seriously need to start considering having cumulative RP bonus for all the conferences, as it seems some people who have role-played throughout the NSCF season and have role-played at a high quality are being screwed over by the RP bonus being updated at the end of each week, when they perhaps cannot role-play as much that week.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure we should probably make a proposal of some form to have cumulative RP bonus for all the conferences next season, rather than having the current system where it is updated each week.

[Homelands our]

Michael VII could I have RP bonus applied only to East Kilbride thank you

[Michael VII]

Michael VII could I have RP bonus applied only to East Kilbride thank you

Sure thing. Is that for the rest of the season, or just for this matchday?

(This isn't because Harloop is out of playoffs contention is it?)

The team that's on the left.

In mine, the home team is on the right, though. I re-format them to conventional American Football results notation.
I think KK's results are home team on the right, as well. I'd have to check the schedule, but I'm sure another conference does it that way too.

Whoops, I thought that everyone just did it on the left from what xkoranate feeds you.

EDIT : Also, while I remember... I've thrown together a test version of the standings sheet which takes strength of schedule into account.
In the sheet, SOS is calculated as ((Team Winning Percentage * 2) + Average Winning Percentage of Opponents) / 3
... mainly because I couldn't figure out a way to calculate Opponents' Opponent's Winning Percentage.

Osarius, this is how you'd calculate SOS. Here's an examples of the current Sequoia Conference.

Sequoia                               P    W   L   GF   GA   GD
1 University of Alzburg-Dyka          9    7   2  175   49 +126 
2 Riversburg-Madison University       9    7   2  156  106  +50
3 University of St. John's Island     9    7   2  158   59  +99
4 Fair Haven State                    9    6   3  200  152  +48
5 Alex Util College                   9    4   5  131  142  −11
6 Northern Dinagat State              9    2   7   68  135  −67
7 Netteingen Tech                     9    2   7  116  252 −136
8 The Academy of Space                9    1   8   60  169 −109

Gonna work it out for UAD.
SOS=(2(OR)+(OOR)/3)

OR (Weighted to exclude H2H records)
RMU 6-1 (0.857)
SJI 6-2 (0.750)
FHS 6-2 (0.750)
AUC 4-4 (0.500)
NDS 2-5 (0.286)
NTU 2-6 (0.250)
SPA 1-7 (0.125)
Overall 27/54 (0.500)

OOR (Do the same for everyone else and exclude H2H records)
RMU 27/54 (0.500)
SJI 27/54 (0.500)
FHS 27/54 (0.500)
AUC 27/54 (0.500)
NDS 27/54 (0.500)
NTU 27/54 (0.500)
SPA 27/54 (0.500)
Overall 189/378 (0.500)

SOS=0.500

As you can see, because we don't schedule out of conference games, everyone will always have a 0.500 SOS until playoffs, when most people stop calculating SOS anyway.

[Osarius]

Also, I think we seriously need to start considering having cumulative RP bonus for all the conferences, as it seems some people who have role-played throughout the NSCF season and have role-played at a high quality are being screwed over by the RP bonus being updated at the end of each week, when they perhaps cannot role-play as much that week.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure we should probably make a proposal of some form to have cumulative RP bonus for all the conferences next season, rather than having the current system where it is updated each week.

This was something that came up in the first season, iirc. By having the RP bonus only count the past two matchdays, it was intended to encourage high activity throughout the season, as opposed to allowing teams to "coast" after a certain point. For example, if we had used a cumulative system this year, Colden would be almost uncatchable now, and they haven't even RPed every matchday. So, as an extension, I assume we'd also have to (drastically) reduce the RP bonus awarded each week, which would then (drastically) increase the chances of a consistent RPer being upset by a non-RPer (due to lower gap in rankings) ... as far as my understanding of scorinators goes. I may be wrong on that, mind. And that may not necessarily be a bad thing, but given the complaints and arguments over in the WCDT ... lol.

I do see your point though... and perhaps a better solution would be to count four matchdays instead or change to a degrading RP bonus system, where an RP bonus awarded for matchday one is worth (for example) 25% of its original value by matchday four. I don't like cumulative RP bonus over long competitions personally (and 14 matchdays is pretty long, imo), but if the consensus is to change, who am I to stop it?




I encourage everyone to tinker in the standings test btw. I want to implement it, but I won't without some kind of consensus from NSCF participants. Or at least the committee. So yeah.. Report your findings, please. I have a habit of missing minor stuff out, and not noticing until much later. Heh.


EDIT : @Michael VII - I understand how it works, when I said I can't figure it out, I meant I can't figure out a way to do it in the spreadsheet. Its too complicated to just use references like I have so far... and might take a while. It took a couple of months in NSCF 2 to figure out how to do head to head stuff lol. This is why I just used a simplified version for now, which still has the desired effect of weighting results based on location etc etc

[Homelands our]

Michael VII could I have RP bonus applied only to East Kilbride thank you

Sure thing. Is that for the rest of the season, or just for this matchday?

(This isn't because Harloop is out of playoffs contention is

rest of season and yes it is that why don't you just do that for everybody it makes more sense if you have 2 teams and 1 is out then you should just do that. Yes and to everyone where should I post the homelands our qualification for NSCF5 as it is about to start.
And I will get a RP in tomorrow.

[Michael VII]

EDIT : @Michael VII - I understand how it works, when I said I can't figure it out, I meant I can't figure out a way to do it in the spreadsheet. Its too complicated to just use references like I have so far... and might take a while. It took a couple of months in NSCF 2 to figure out how to do head to head stuff lol. This is why I just used a simplified version for now, which still has the desired effect of weighting results based on location etc etc

Right, I misread it as you not knowing how to calculate it...haha

And Homelands, if you are using qualification for NSCF5 through a tournament, you can use it as RP material here, but not too much because it could detract from NSCF4 RP. Otherwise you could make/or use it if you currently have one, a Domestic Sports Newswire in which your College Football scores and standings, and therefore qualification, is in its own thread where you can talk about it as much as you like without anyone considering it spam.

[Osarius]

OK, I did a bit of tinkering in the prototype standings sheet, and it definitely makes a difference for teams in a weaker conference. The updated version (via the scorinators link in the sig) has now been changed to show the current system against the new (with SOS as first tiebreaker), with deliberate results manipulation to show clear changes.

The old system ranks by the following: Wins, H2H wins, H2H PD, PD, Pts For, Away Pts For, Previous season rank, Alphabetical order
The new system ranks by: Strength of Schedule (as detailed above), H2H wins, H2H PD, PD, Pts For, Away Pts For, Previous season rank, Alphabetical order

Looking at the two tables, you'll notice that the teams in the weaker conference all have the better point differentials when compared to teams they are tied with... but all finish below because of their (marginally) weaker schedules. Is that something we're happy with seeing, or should I tinker a bit more with that? I'm yet to fully test the possibility of a team with less wins outranking a team in a weaker conference, but already this system makes point differential less important. I have a suspicion that its highly unlikely a 3rd placed team in a weaker conference would miss out on the playoffs due to strength of schedule issues though, because their record should be good enough to out-do most other non top-two teams anyway... I'll test that later probably.

But yeah... on the issues I've picked up on so far... any feedback?




Also, new power rankings coming in the next couple of hours, I think. I hope. Might have to stick to ten again though.

[Mytannion]

This was something that came up in the first season, iirc. By having the RP bonus only count the past two matchdays, it was intended to encourage high activity throughout the season, as opposed to allowing teams to "coast" after a certain point. For example, if we had used a cumulative system this year, Colden would be almost uncatchable now, and they haven't even RPed every matchday. So, as an extension, I assume we'd also have to (drastically) reduce the RP bonus awarded each week, which would then (drastically) increase the chances of a consistent RPer being upset by a non-RPer (due to lower gap in rankings) ... as far as my understanding of scorinators goes. I may be wrong on that, mind. And that may not necessarily be a bad thing, but given the complaints and arguments over in the WCDT ... lol.

I do see your point though... and perhaps a better solution would be to count four matchdays instead or change to a degrading RP bonus system, where an RP bonus awarded for matchday one is worth (for example) 25% of its original value by matchday four. I don't like cumulative RP bonus over long competitions personally (and 14 matchdays is pretty long, imo), but if the consensus is to change, who am I to stop it?

I understand the fact that cumulative role-play bonus would probably cause some teams to be far and away the best in their particular conference - but, as in your example, Colden and obviously, Churchma - has role-played more than many in the Horizon Conference. If others haven't role-played, then surely they shouldn't benefit from not role-playing, as they do with the current system with the bonus resetting every couple of games.

I wouldn't be bothered what type of the bonus it is, but I hate it being reset - sure, this rewards consistent role-playing but does not reward someone who doesn't have time to role-play the week after they have done a brilliant piece of writing which would trouble the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens and whoever else to write. I feel it needs to change - and perhaps a bonus which degrades would be a better idea in this situation - but I certainly feel there should be some change.

[Mytannion]

OK, I did a bit of tinkering in the prototype standings sheet, and it definitely makes a difference for teams in a weaker conference. The updated version (via the scorinators link in the sig) has now been changed to show the current system against the new (with SOS as first tiebreaker), with deliberate results manipulation to show clear changes.

The old system ranks by the following: Wins, H2H wins, H2H PD, PD, Pts For, Away Pts For, Previous season rank, Alphabetical order
The new system ranks by: Strength of Schedule (as detailed above), H2H wins, H2H PD, PD, Pts For, Away Pts For, Previous season rank, Alphabetical order

Looking at the two tables, you'll notice that the teams in the weaker conference all have the better point differentials when compared to teams they are tied with... but all finish below because of their (marginally) weaker schedules. Is that something we're happy with seeing, or should I tinker a bit more with that? I'm yet to fully test the possibility of a team with less wins outranking a team in a weaker conference, but already this system makes point differential less important. I have a suspicion that its highly unlikely a 3rd placed team in a weaker conference would miss out on the playoffs due to strength of schedule issues though, because their record should be good enough to out-do most other non top-two teams anyway... I'll test that later probably.

But yeah... on the issues I've picked up on so far... any feedback?

I've looked at it, but unless we begin to look at out-of-conference games - the strength of schedule thing will be pretty much the same, as Michael VII has shown. Wouldn't strength of schedule or the NSCF somehow take in the average rank of the opponents before the season? So if the Sequoia Conference has the highest average rank of all the conferences, the teams in this conference have to play more higher ranked teams (on average), than other conferences.

If this has been included already and I've made a glaring error in how I've read your posts, then please ignore this aha.

[Mytannion]

Apologies for the double post and now with the triple post, but on a completely unrelated note to the changes in both the way we choose our rankings and the way we give out role-play bonus to the teams in the NSCF, I have another interesting proposal which could actually help to reward teams who perhaps role-play for large parts of the season but perhaps haven't made the play-offs, but even if they have - it's a way of teams being rewarded for consistent role-playing throughout the season.

If there is any opposition to this, I won't run it - but if there isn't, then, at the end of this season - perhaps inbetween the end of the season and first game of the play-offs, I am planning on running four bowl games. The NSCF Committee will vote on the eight teams in these four games - with the only conditions basically being that a team has consistently role-played and (perhaps, this may/may not be included) have a winning record at the end of the season.

It would be under the understanding that these games obviously are just a reward game for teams who have done fairly well in the NSCF season, ICly we could just say they are big exhibition/warm-up games between good teams (which would then mean that it'd make sense for one of the rules of eligibility to be a winning record) and OOCly, it'd would be a series of games rewarding the best/most consistent role-players in the season.

I suggest this a) because I wish to mirror the real-life NCAA more, as I feel it is an awesome system they have in place and b) I want to see teams openly rewarded for how well they've role-played throughout the season and c) because I think it will add to role-playing for each season if a team can say 'NSCF 4 Grain Bowl winners', Grain Bowl just being an example for a name.

I'm not sure how it'd work in terms of voting - as I'm sure that each NSCF Committee member will vote for different teams and there may have to be some system of weighting votes or something and once we have 8 teams, we may have to vote again so that we can have the four match-ups decided. Again, not entirely sure how it'd work, but I think it'd be an interesting addition to the NSCF season.

What say you, members of the NSCF?

[Civil Citizenry]

snip

Myt and I had a discussion about this on IRC, but we didn't come to any sort of conclusion, so here are my thoughts.

In real life, there is a bowl system in place as the postseason for NCAA football. The top five bowls, called the BCS bowls, which include the national championship, are partially selected by the BCS Rankings, which would be like a mixture of the "official" rankings and Osarius's power rankings. But the BCS bowls are not just determined by rankings: conference champions from the major conferences receive automatic berths. All the other bowls - and there a lot of them - are determined by conference placement, too.

For years - ever since the BCS system was created, specifically to create an official national championship to determine football's best team - there has been a raging debate between the bowl system and a playoff system, which is what we use in the NSCF. Both routes determine the best team pretty fairly (one pits the best conferences' best teams against each other, the other has the best teams face off one-by-one over a longer time period). They're both legitimate options.

The crux of the discussion is that you cannot have both in place. Maybe it's something that comes inherently from living in America as part of a society consumed with college football, but to determine one national champion there may only be one way to go about it. I'll give you a real life example. Going by the BCS rankings right now, the two teams that would meet in the national championship are LSU and Oklahoma State. But it is conventional wisdom that the best game that could possibly be devised, and one that could be legitimately set up through a playoff system would be LSU against Alabama. If we had, essentially, two national championships, how could we determine which team is really the best? If LSU only wins one of the games, do they deserve the title "national champions"? What if they lose both? What if the matchups produce four different teams?

I understand where Mytannion is coming from about rewarding RPers. But if the goal is to take the eight best teams and put them into four games to determine the best, while also putting the best sixteen teams together to determine the best - well, how could you reconcile that? A national championship to end all national championships, between the winner of the top bowl and the winner of the playoff competition? It's not feasible. So Mytannion has introduced a discussion that we can and probably should have: do we stick with the playoff system, or switch to the RL style of bowls? You just can't have both on a consistent basis if you want to determine the champion.

On a related note, I had formed an idea way back around the first or second week of the season to host a postseason game at Touffer between the Woodlands winner and another conference winner (undecided as yet). It would be called the Crown Bowl, and would have no meaning other than to make it a fun tradition that could be used in RPs ("Touffer is really hoping to win the Woodlands and get into the Crown Bowl"). Not sure if I will do that, but if I do I'll make it known.

[Osarius]

I've looked at it, but unless we begin to look at out-of-conference games - the strength of schedule thing will be pretty much the same, as Michael VII has shown.

Nope. I haven't noticed this in my tests so far, probably because I tweaked the formula used in real life. As things stand, there is a difference in strength of schedule, because teams will have played different opponents with differing records etc etc, and even then, at the end of the season, when everyone will have played opposition whose combined win-loss percentages should level out... it won't be level. I hadn't actually planned on that, but it still works out, as I'll explain in a minute.

Before I do that...

I'm wary of including rank in the calculation. Mainly because if we go by average ranking of teams in each conference, Sequoia and Woodlands -- which are the consensus strongest conferences -- actually have the lower average rankings this season. When you think it through, it makes sense. The top teams will have more potential losses (to each other) because there are more of them, so the higher ranked teams are ranked lower than the top teams in other conferences... but equally, the weak teams have less potential wins because of the higher number of quality opposition teams, so they also rank lower. It's a nice backup idea though, I guess.

Back to that strength of schedule argument...

Using the example teams in StandingsTest2.xls...
Everyone has played all teams in their own conference twice. Same as we will.
That's effectively a full season, then... because everyone has played the same opposition as their conference mates.

First we'll calculate East Elismith's Strength of Schedule:

Winning Percentage
** 4 home wins, 3 away wins (this distinction is key when calculating WP for each team)
** ((4*0.6)+(3*1.4))/8
** (2.4 + 4.2)/8
** 6.6/8
** 0.825

Opponent's Winning Percentage

** Rhodunaia
**** ((2*0.6)+(3*1.4))/8
**** (1.2 + 4.2)/8
**** 5.4/8
**** 0.675

** Junipa
**** ((2*0.6)+(2*1.4))/8
**** (1.2 + 2./8
**** 4/8
**** 0.500

** Cartagena
**** ((3*0.6)+(0*1.4))/8
**** (1.8 + 0)/8
**** 1.8/8
**** 0.225

** Burningham
**** ((1*0.6)+(0*1.4))/8
**** (0.6 + 0)/8
**** 0.6/8
**** 0.075

** (0.675 + 0.500 + 0.225 + 0.075)/4
** 0.36875

Strength of Schedule according to the formulae:
** ((0.825 * 2) + 0.36875)/3
** (1.65 + 0.36875)/3
** 2.017785/3
** 0.672958333

Then we calculate the same for Hollybrent (who tied them for wins):

Hollybrent WP
** same as East Elismith
** 0.825

Hollybrent OWP is different though because of the locations of the wins.
Because Rhodunaia won 3 of their 5 games on the road, as opposed to Oro Oro's 3 home wins, that already makes a difference, assuming all other results were the same. By extension, because the formula awards more weight to road wins, it considers Rhodunaia's Winning Percentage to be above Oro Oro's.

Oro Oro
** ((3*0.6)+(2*1.4))/8
** 0.575

We continue and do the rest and end up with Hollybrent's OWP:
** (0.575 + 0.400 + 0.325 + 0.075)/4
** 0.34375

As a result, the final calculation differs too:
** ((0.825 * 2) + 0.34375)/3
** (1.65 + 0.34375)/3
** 0.664583333




So... basically, if you want the tl;dr version... the strength of schedule formula I'm using shouldn't suffer from the problem of all turning out equal all the time. Mainly because of the home/away weighting. The example M7 gave wasn't taking home/away weighting into consideration (from what I can tell, anyway), whereas the spreadsheet does.

That said, I just realised it actually calculates them wrong, haha. I've just fixed that (and tweaked a result for the sake of highlighting the difference) and I'll upload again in a minute so you can take a look again.





Errr... as for RP bonus etc... I'll leave that to the community. I think we both made valid points and its something we should get a consensus decision on. If people wanna change things, we can come up with something, I'm sure.

The Bowl thing... I'll put my hands up right now and say I just don't really get it. I can see the RP merit behind something like the Crown Bowl that CC suggested, but I thought that was basically what Myt was saying :s ... In the end though, it doesnt really matter to me to be honest, as long as someone knows what its all about and how to set it up. Ideally they'd be able to explain it to a bunch of people too (preferably including me, since I'm the one putting together these weekly rankings at the moment) so things can carry on no matter what. I'm good with either method though. Whatever the community decides, you know?

[Michael VII]

Yeah, I didn't take into account home wins and losses, et cetera, because that's getting into RPI territory instead of SOS. I just did basic SOS calculation to show that it is impractical to use SOS in a league system that has everyone play each other an equal amount of times...That's why OOC games are important with the SOS argument in RL College Football.

[Churchma]

Apologies for the double post and now with the triple post, but on a completely unrelated note to the changes in both the way we choose our rankings and the way we give out role-play bonus to the teams in the NSCF, I have another interesting proposal which could actually help to reward teams who perhaps role-play for large parts of the season but perhaps haven't made the play-offs, but even if they have - it's a way of teams being rewarded for consistent role-playing throughout the season.

If there is any opposition to this, I won't run it - but if there isn't, then, at the end of this season - perhaps inbetween the end of the season and first game of the play-offs, I am planning on running four bowl games. The NSCF Committee will vote on the eight teams in these four games - with the only conditions basically being that a team has consistently role-played and (perhaps, this may/may not be included) have a winning record at the end of the season.

It would be under the understanding that these games obviously are just a reward game for teams who have done fairly well in the NSCF season, ICly we could just say they are big exhibition/warm-up games between good teams (which would then mean that it'd make sense for one of the rules of eligibility to be a winning record) and OOCly, it'd would be a series of games rewarding the best/most consistent role-players in the season.

I suggest this a) because I wish to mirror the real-life NCAA more, as I feel it is an awesome system they have in place and b) I want to see teams openly rewarded for how well they've role-played throughout the season and c) because I think it will add to role-playing for each season if a team can say 'NSCF 4 Grain Bowl winners', Grain Bowl just being an example for a name.

I'm not sure how it'd work in terms of voting - as I'm sure that each NSCF Committee member will vote for different teams and there may have to be some system of weighting votes or something and once we have 8 teams, we may have to vote again so that we can have the four match-ups decided. Again, not entirely sure how it'd work, but I think it'd be an interesting addition to the NSCF season.

What say you, members of the NSCF?

First of all, sorry to all of you that I haven't been very active within the past week. We're in the first round of the Division-2 National Playoffs this week- so it's been hectic around here.

Back to the point- I think you mean to say that you want to mirror real life FBS (formerly D-1A) rules. The NCAA has four divisions:
1. Football Bowl Subdivision
2. Football Championship Subdivision
3. Divsion Two
4. Division Three

The only one that implements strictly a bowl schedule is FBS. The rest have a playoff format similar to that of the NSCF-world. With that being said, I think ONE bowl game is a great idea. We're going to have 16 teams in the playoffs as it is, and odds are that some of the teams that get into the playoffs won't even have RP'd a single time. We don't need 24 teams out of 40 to receive a post-season game- that's not the direction we need to take this thing. In all honesty, we should probably cut down the playoffs (starting in NSCF 5) to 12 teams.

[Churchma]

snip

Myt and I had a discussion about this on IRC, but we didn't come to any sort of conclusion, so here are my thoughts.

In real life, there is a bowl system in place as the postseason for NCAA football. The top five bowls, called the BCS bowls, which include the national championship, are partially selected by the BCS Rankings, which would be like a mixture of the "official" rankings and Osarius's power rankings. But the BCS bowls are not just determined by rankings: conference champions from the major conferences receive automatic berths. All the other bowls - and there a lot of them - are determined by conference placement, too.

For years - ever since the BCS system was created, specifically to create an official national championship to determine football's best team - there has been a raging debate between the bowl system and a playoff system, which is what we use in the NSCF. Both routes determine the best team pretty fairly (one pits the best conferences' best teams against each other, the other has the best teams face off one-by-one over a longer time period). They're both legitimate options.

The crux of the discussion is that you cannot have both in place. Maybe it's something that comes inherently from living in America as part of a society consumed with college football, but to determine one national champion there may only be one way to go about it. I'll give you a real life example. Going by the BCS rankings right now, the two teams that would meet in the national championship are LSU and Oklahoma State. But it is conventional wisdom that the best game that could possibly be devised, and one that could be legitimately set up through a playoff system would be LSU against Alabama. If we had, essentially, two national championships, how could we determine which team is really the best? If LSU only wins one of the games, do they deserve the title "national champions"? What if they lose both? What if the matchups produce four different teams?

I understand where Mytannion is coming from about rewarding RPers. But if the goal is to take the eight best teams and put them into four games to determine the best, while also putting the best sixteen teams together to determine the best - well, how could you reconcile that? A national championship to end all national championships, between the winner of the top bowl and the winner of the playoff competition? It's not feasible. So Mytannion has introduced a discussion that we can and probably should have: do we stick with the playoff system, or switch to the RL style of bowls? You just can't have both on a consistent basis if you want to determine the champion.

On a related note, I had formed an idea way back around the first or second week of the season to host a postseason game at Touffer between the Woodlands winner and another conference winner (undecided as yet). It would be called the Crown Bowl, and would have no meaning other than to make it a fun tradition that could be used in RPs ("Touffer is really hoping to win the Woodlands and get into the Crown Bowl"). Not sure if I will do that, but if I do I'll make it known.

1. I might be misunderstanding Myt's point, but I don't think he means to have the playoff champion face the bowl champion. That's getting a little over board if you ask me. But in NCAA Division Two, there is a national playoff and then there are also a few bowl games for teams that do not make it to the playoffs. Which brings me to my next point.

2. I'd be strongly opposed to any bowl game pitting playoff teams against one another. That's completely unrealistic (as long as that's what we're still going for). Teams that advance to the playoffs have one goal in mind, and that is to win a national championship. Teams wouldn't ever play for a national championship, and then step back and play in a bowl game. Don't let this criticsm be taken to heart, as it is not a stab at you or anything of that sort, it's just that I simply don't believe this idea is realistic in any way, shape, or form.

[Michael VII]

Apologies for the double post and now with the triple post, but on a completely unrelated note to the changes in both the way we choose our rankings and the way we give out role-play bonus to the teams in the NSCF, I have another interesting proposal which could actually help to reward teams who perhaps role-play for large parts of the season but perhaps haven't made the play-offs, but even if they have - it's a way of teams being rewarded for consistent role-playing throughout the season.

If there is any opposition to this, I won't run it - but if there isn't, then, at the end of this season - perhaps inbetween the end of the season and first game of the play-offs, I am planning on running four bowl games. The NSCF Committee will vote on the eight teams in these four games - with the only conditions basically being that a team has consistently role-played and (perhaps, this may/may not be included) have a winning record at the end of the season.

It would be under the understanding that these games obviously are just a reward game for teams who have done fairly well in the NSCF season, ICly we could just say they are big exhibition/warm-up games between good teams (which would then mean that it'd make sense for one of the rules of eligibility to be a winning record) and OOCly, it'd would be a series of games rewarding the best/most consistent role-players in the season.

I suggest this a) because I wish to mirror the real-life NCAA more, as I feel it is an awesome system they have in place and b) I want to see teams openly rewarded for how well they've role-played throughout the season and c) because I think it will add to role-playing for each season if a team can say 'NSCF 4 Grain Bowl winners', Grain Bowl just being an example for a name.

I'm not sure how it'd work in terms of voting - as I'm sure that each NSCF Committee member will vote for different teams and there may have to be some system of weighting votes or something and once we have 8 teams, we may have to vote again so that we can have the four match-ups decided. Again, not entirely sure how it'd work, but I think it'd be an interesting addition to the NSCF season.

What say you, members of the NSCF?

First of all, sorry to all of you that I haven't been very active within the past week. We're in the first round of the Division-2 National Playoffs this week- so it's been hectic around here.

Back to the point- I think you mean to say that you want to mirror real life FBS (formerly D-1A) rules. The NCAA has four divisions:
1. Football Bowl Subdivision
2. Football Championship Subdivision
3. Divsion Two
4. Division Three

The only one that implements strictly a bowl schedule is FBS. The rest have a playoff format similar to that of the NSCF-world. With that being said, I think ONE bowl game is a great idea. We're going to have 16 teams in the playoffs as it is, and odds are that some of the teams that get into the playoffs won't even have RP'd a single time. We don't need 24 teams out of 40 to receive a post-season game- that's not the direction we need to take this thing. In all honesty, we should probably cut down the playoffs (starting in NSCF 5) to 12 teams.

Well, I'd have no problem with having a few bowl games for those teams above .500 that don't qualify for the playoffs. I mean, at this point, Frbiba State have quite a real prospect of missing out on the playoffs, especially if they lose to Touffer again or Arkinesia, even Jagoza, and I've RP'ed every matchday, so I'd personally like to have a couple of bowls to play in just for laughs. Either way, my regular season this year ends with the rival match against Jagoza, so I'm happy enough to not go into the postseason if Margaret continues her unjust hatred of me this year!

If we cut it down to 12 teams, realistically only 20 teams will have a winning record, so four bowl games would be nice to end the season for teams with winning records but play in a tough conference, "cough" Woodlands "cough"!

12 teams allows for only 2 at large berths, and Woodlands has Utica, Ark, Touffer and FSU, only two of which can go through, not to mention Sequoia has 3 at the top of their game, and I think the Big Eight does too, so 12 teams would be pretty harsh for a lot of the storied teams. But perhaps that's the direction we want to take this thing.

EDIT: No, I'm not happy to not go into the postseason this season! I want to avenge my three losses to Utica by winning the damn thing this year!

[Churchma]

First of all, sorry to all of you that I haven't been very active within the past week. We're in the first round of the Division-2 National Playoffs this week- so it's been hectic around here.

Back to the point- I think you mean to say that you want to mirror real life FBS (formerly D-1A) rules. The NCAA has four divisions:
1. Football Bowl Subdivision
2. Football Championship Subdivision
3. Divsion Two
4. Division Three

The only one that implements strictly a bowl schedule is FBS. The rest have a playoff format similar to that of the NSCF-world. With that being said, I think ONE bowl game is a great idea. We're going to have 16 teams in the playoffs as it is, and odds are that some of the teams that get into the playoffs won't even have RP'd a single time. We don't need 24 teams out of 40 to receive a post-season game- that's not the direction we need to take this thing. In all honesty, we should probably cut down the playoffs (starting in NSCF 5) to 12 teams.

Well, I'd have no problem with having a few bowl games for those teams above .500 that don't qualify for the playoffs. I mean, at this point, Frbiba State have quite a real prospect of missing out on the playoffs, especially if they lose to Touffer again or Arkinesia, even Jagoza, and I've RP'ed every matchday, so I'd personally like to have a couple of bowls to play in just for laughs. Either way, my regular season this year ends with the rival match against Jagoza, so I'm happy enough to not go into the postseason if Margaret continues her unjust hatred of me this year!

If we cut it down to 12 teams, realistically only 20 teams will have a winning record, so four bowl games would be nice to end the season for teams with winning records but play in a tough conference, "cough" Woodlands "cough"!

12 teams allows for only 2 at large berths, and Woodlands has Utica, Ark, Touffer and FSU, only two of which can go through, not to mention Sequoia has 3 at the top of their game, and I think the Big Eight does too, so 12 teams would be pretty harsh for a lot of the storied teams. But perhaps that's the direction we want to take this thing.

EDIT: No, I'm not happy to not go into the postseason this season! I want to avenge my three losses to Utica by winning the damn thing this year!

Given the current conditions we're under with five conferences, I would personally love to see the playoffs changed from 16 teams to 12 teams. Take a look at my conference this year (Horizon Conference)- it's a joke. Aside from myself and Cosumar (Ramusok Capital), this conference has little-to-no RP activity. If you think the Horizon Conference is bad, look at the Big Eight Conference. Now THAT is pathetic. I could be wrong because I haven't looked throughout the entire RP thread enough, but I don't think Bugny A&M (7-1) has even RP'd once, and they're atop that division. I think if we take the top two teams from each conference, giving us ten teams in total, that will make for a playoffs that actually garners some RP activity. Then the next two teams based on W-L Record would get the last two spots. It would be great if we could have 16 teams that consistenly RP in the playoffs, but at this point, that isn't going to happen. I think it would be in the best interest of the NSCF Committee to consider changing the number of playoff teams from 16 to 12 starting in NSCF 5.

IF that happens, and we actually have solid teams on the outside-looking-in with the playoffs, I would support a couple bowl games. Until then, it's not neccessary.

[Michael VII]

Well, I'd have no problem with having a few bowl games for those teams above .500 that don't qualify for the playoffs. I mean, at this point, Frbiba State have quite a real prospect of missing out on the playoffs, especially if they lose to Touffer again or Arkinesia, even Jagoza, and I've RP'ed every matchday, so I'd personally like to have a couple of bowls to play in just for laughs. Either way, my regular season this year ends with the rival match against Jagoza, so I'm happy enough to not go into the postseason if Margaret continues her unjust hatred of me this year!

If we cut it down to 12 teams, realistically only 20 teams will have a winning record, so four bowl games would be nice to end the season for teams with winning records but play in a tough conference, "cough" Woodlands "cough"!

12 teams allows for only 2 at large berths, and Woodlands has Utica, Ark, Touffer and FSU, only two of which can go through, not to mention Sequoia has 3 at the top of their game, and I think the Big Eight does too, so 12 teams would be pretty harsh for a lot of the storied teams. But perhaps that's the direction we want to take this thing.

EDIT: No, I'm not happy to not go into the postseason this season! I want to avenge my three losses to Utica by winning the damn thing this year!

Given the current conditions we're under with five conferences, I would personally love to see the playoffs changed from 16 teams to 12 teams. Take a look at my conference this year (Horizon Conference)- it's a joke. Aside from myself and Cosumar (Ramusok Capital), this conference has little-to-no RP activity. If you think the Horizon Conference is bad, look at the Big Eight Conference. Now THAT is pathetic. I could be wrong because I haven't looked throughout the entire RP thread enough, but I don't think Bugny A&M (7-1) has even RP'd once, and they're atop that division. I think if we take the top two teams from each conference, giving us ten teams in total, that will make for a playoffs that actually garners some RP activity. Then the next two teams based on W-L Record would get the last two spots. It would be great if we could have 16 teams that consistenly RP in the playoffs, but at this point, that isn't going to happen. I think it would be in the best interest of the NSCF Committee to consider changing the number of playoff teams from 16 to 12 starting in NSCF 5.

IF that happens, and we actually have solid teams on the outside-looking-in with the playoffs, I would support a couple bowl games. Until then, it's not neccessary.

Well Woodlands has 5 of its 8 teams consistently RP, (including Jagoza, so 4 users) and they make up the top 5, so obviously RPing helps out your chances of doing well, and Sequoia has quite a few consistent RPers, and Mineral Conference has UPS every week, Homelands our most weeks (but don't get the results they probably deserve) and OCSU every couple of matchdays. So, that's three conferences with consistent RPers, and I suppose then that Horizon and Big Eight are the bad ones then.

[Silver Beach]

Quick question, though a good discussion: How many teams make the playoffs, and who qualifies?